Zhao Feng’s lips were trembling, though it was hard to tell if it was from anger or fear.
Lin Yuan gave a small smile and turned to walk away.
After a few steps, he stopped and looked back over his shoulder.
“Zhao Feng, was it? I’ll accept you as my son. Hahaha!”
Then, with Purple Lightning resting on his shoulder, he vanished into the depths of the dense forest, leaving Zhao Feng and the others collapsed on the ground, wailing in pain.
About seven minutes later, when two people in invigilator uniforms arrived at the scene, they were met with a pathetic sight: nine students were sprawled haphazardly under a large tree. Some were clutching their waists, some were rubbing their legs, and others were holding their wrists.
The distress signal devices of all nine people lay shattered on the ground, their fragments scattered everywhere.
The leader of the pair was a female examiner in her forties named Zhou, a Tier 5 wind ability user.
She looked down at the mess on the ground and remained silent for several seconds.
“Who did this?”
Zhao Feng looked up, his expression looking as if he had just been forced to eat something foul. “An F-rank lightning user... He said his name was Lin Yuan.”
Examiner Zhou was stunned for a moment.
“F-rank? One person took out all nine of you?”
Zhao Feng said nothing. The yellow-haired boy behind him clutched his waist and spoke with difficulty, “Examiner, he ambushed us...”
“An ambush can shatter nine distress signal devices?” Examiner Zhou interrupted him, her tone carrying blatant disbelief.
“There are nine of you, and the highest among you is at Tier 1, Level 5. You were beaten like this by a single F-rank lightning user?”
No one answered.
Examiner Zhou took a deep breath and knelt down to inspect the fragments of the distress signal devices on the ground.
The fragments were distributed very evenly. Each of the nine bracelets had been precisely shattered right where they were worn on the wrist.
They hadn't been smashed; they had been struck by a spear tip. Nine strikes, each hitting the exact same spot nine times.
She stood up and brushed the dust off her hands.
“The nine of you, come with me. You have lost your qualification for the combat exam.”
The faces of all nine students turned pale simultaneously.
As Examiner Zhou turned to leave, the younger examiner beside her leaned in and asked in a low voice, “Sister Zhou, that Lin Yuan... is he really F-rank?”
Examiner Zhou didn't look back.
“F-rank? Someone who can precisely shatter nine distress signal devices with such perfect control that there isn't a single bit of collateral damage? You’re telling me he’s F-rank?”
The younger examiner opened his mouth but found no words.
“Check his kill record,” Examiner Zhou said.
The younger examiner pulled out a tablet and brought up the data from Lin Yuan’s locator.
The numbers on the screen made his eyes widen further and further.
“From the start of the exam until now, he’s killed... two Tier 2, Level 2 monsters, one Tier 2, Level 1 monster, two Tier 1, Level 9 monsters, four Tier 1, Level 8 monsters, and six Tier 1, Level 7 monsters. Total points: 143. Current rank...”
He swallowed hard.
“First.”
...
Meanwhile, Lin Yuan had already appeared a kilometer away.
What Lin Yuan didn't know was that in the sky high above him, the moon was growing fuller by the day.
In three days, on the night of the full moon, the seal of the Abyss Magic Cave would reach its weakest point in centuries.
The opportunity the Shadow Abyss Wolf King had waited a hundred years for, the plan the Blood Eye Cult had been orchestrating for who knows how long, the thirty thousand monsters gathered a hundred miles outside Hangzhou...
They were all waiting for that night.
At this moment, on the ninth floor of the Abyss Magic Cave.
In the very center of the cavern, a massive red transparent stone stood silently.
The stone was three meters high and a deep, translucent crimson throughout.
Inside the stone, a blurry shadow could be vaguely seen, curled up as if sleeping—or perhaps waiting.
A Shadow Abyss Wolf stood before the giant red stone.
Unlike the Tier 5 Shadow Abyss Wolves on the fifth floor, this Shadow Abyss Wolf had almost lost its lupine form.
She stood like a human, upright on two legs with her back straight.
Her figure was slender, and her entire body was covered in a layer of extremely short, silver-white fur.
Her face was a mix between wolf and human, with clear facial features and pupils that were a deep, dark red.
The Shadow Abyss Wolf King.
The supreme existence of the Abyss Magic Cave, a Tier 9 monster.
She had been suppressed underground for centuries by the Hangzhou sealing formation, her true body unable to leave the ninth floor.
For hundreds of years, she had tried countless methods to break the seal.
She sent low-tier clansmen through the cracks in the sealing formation to find its weaknesses.
She established contact with monster groups in the outside world, waiting for the right moment.
Until a few months ago, when the people from the Blood Eye Cult found her.
The human with the inverted eye pattern in his left eye had proposed a deal.
The Shadow Abyss Wolf King reached out with her front claw—or rather, her hand. Although her fingertips still retained sharp claws, the shape of her fingers was now identical to a human’s.
She pressed her hand against the surface of the giant red stone, her dark red pupils reflecting the blurry shadow inside.
“Wait just a little longer,” she whispered, her voice light and slightly raspy, as if she hadn't spoken in a very long time.
“It’s almost time. This time, we will definitely succeed!”
Inside the giant red stone, the shadow stirred slightly.
The Shadow Abyss Wolf King’s pupils contracted sharply.
She had waited for this movement for far too long.
...
After the robbery incident, Lin Yuan spent most of the day wandering deep in the forest, finding nothing but more monsters.
He had tried to track the source of the monster anomaly, starting from the clearing where Jiang Ran’s group had been surrounded and following the trampled tracks westward. However, the trail went completely cold at a scree slope.
The tracks scattered in all directions from there, as if something had given an order to disperse and then vanished into thin air.
There were no footprints, no lingering scent, and no traces of human activity.
Lin Yuan crouched on the scree slope for a while, munching on a tea egg, then stood up and brushed his hands off.
“Fair enough.”
He hadn't really harbored high expectations anyway.
If a faction capable of herding monsters right under Hangzhou’s nose could be easily tracked by a Tier 1 examinee, they wouldn't be very professional.
Whatever was behind it, it wasn't something he could worry about for now.
If the sky falls, the examiners will hold it up. If the examiners can't hold it, Hangzhou will. And if Hangzhou can't, then his worrying wouldn't help anyway.
So, he put the matter aside for the moment and focused on his own business.
Hunting monsters.
The harvest on the second day was even more bountiful than the first.
He ventured into the westernmost edge of the D-rank danger zone, right up against the red diagonal line marking the boundary of the area where those above Tier 3 were strictly forbidden to enter.
The density of monsters here was much higher than in the outer areas, and their tiers were higher as well. Moreover, there were almost no other examinees to compete with; probably not a single other examinee in all of Hangzhou could reach this depth.
A Tier 2, Level 3 Shadow Leopard, a Tier 2, Level 4 Rock-armored Great Lizard, and a Tier 2, Level 3 Wind-winged Python.
Creatures that could wipe out a team of examinees in the outer areas were being toppled one by one by his spear.
Ability points poured in like water.
The Shadow Leopard was extremely fast and could dash short distances through shadows. A normal Tier 1 ability user wouldn't even be able to catch a glimpse of its shadow.
But Lin Yuan had Sands of Time, which slowed everything within a three-meter radius by ten to thirty percent.
The moment the Shadow Leopard pounced, its speed plummeted, and the tip of Purple Lightning was already waiting at its throat.
Rate on N.U.
